OVERNIGHT. Jazz.

Lincoln Stands Up To Holiday Comparisons

It often has been said that singer Abbey Lincoln is the leading artistic heir to Billie Holiday, a point that seemed inescapable Saturday night at the Ravinia Festival.

Not that Lincoln specifically sounds like Holiday or approaches the great diva's level of musicianship. The often rough and grainy quality of Lincoln's vocals and the inaccuracy of her pitch keep from achieving Holiday's stature.

Yet there is an undeniably searing quality to her interpretations, a direct and unadorned way of communicating that consistently recalls Holiday. More intellectual than sensual, more dramatic than lyric, Lincoln's best work far transcends her vocal limitations.

So her performance on the second night of Ravinia's Jazz in June series was intriguing. Uninterested in singing from the standard song repertory, Lincoln instead offered original and other unusual fare, most of it from her recent recording, "Devil's Got Your Tongue." And though her penchant for medium-slow tempos and middle-register vocals made one number sound much like the next, there was no resisting the bittersweet vocal quality of everything she sang.

Nowhere did she spell out her vocal lexicon more vividly than in one of the evening's few standards, "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year." The plaintive quality of her phrases, the hushed dynamic range, the speech-song style of delivery, the starkly unembellished lines epitomized the austere nature of Lincoln's work.

Much of the appeal of this set owed equally to Lincoln's pianist, Rodney Kendrick. Playing economical, carefully sculpted lines that represented the pianistic equivalent of Lincoln's vocals, Kendrick established himself as a keyboard improviser more interested in concise musical expression than technical ostentation. The depth of his sound, the unusual and often dissonant way he built chords, and the gentle rhythmic swing that pervaded his solos further argued that he has the makings of a major keyboard artist.

The second half of Saturday's show belonged to tenor saxophone virtuoso Sonny Rollins, who turned in a relatively subdued performance, at least by his own, volatile standards. Oddly, though, the somewhat low-key set shed additional light on Rollins' work. Strip away the perpetual crescendos and outsized climaxes of the typical Rollins solo, and the precise musical components of his improvisational style become all the more apparent.

Thus, in the Caribbean-influenced pieces that are staples in Rollins' repertoire, his solos were propelled by more than just a joyous rhythmic bounce. By constantly shifting meloldic accents and traversing the full range of his instrument, Rollins sustained the exuberance of this music even without great blasts of sound.

And in "Tennessee Waltz," probably the most frequently performed piece in Rollins' repertoire these days, he made a somewhat pulpy standard sound fresh by straying into startling, far-off harmonies.